Question

A severe storm has an average peak wave height of 16.4 feet for waves hitting the shore. Suppose that a storm is in progress with a severe storm class rating. Let us say that we want to set up a statistical test to see if the wave action (i.e., height) is dying down. The next 10 waves have an average wave height is 16 feet with a SD of .6 ft. If you wanted to test the hypothesis that the waves are dying down, what would you use for the alternate hypothesis

Answer 1

The alternate hypothesis is:

`H_(a) < 16`

Explanation:

There are two types of hypothesis. The null hypothesis and the alternate hypothesis. The null hypothesis is that the mean found is equal to the expected value. The alternate hypothesis is a question about this expected value(different, more, less)

A severe storm has an average peak wave height of 16.4 feet for waves hitting the shore.

This means that the null hypothesis is
`H_(0) = 16.4`

Let us say that we want to set up a statistical test to see if the wave action (i.e., height) is dying down. If you wanted to test the hypothesis that the waves are dying down, what would you use for the alternate hypothesis

Dying down means lower average peak, that is, lower than the average of 16.4. This means that the alternate hypothesis is:

`H_(a) < 16`